


we are the broken ones (who chose to spark a flame)

by MYuzuki



Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV, Kingsglaive
Genre: (Spoiler alert: it's Nyx), (time travel has a handy way of undoing the fact you just died lol), Gen, Or at least the start of one, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26131459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MYuzuki/pseuds/MYuzuki
Summary: Nyx basks in the pale light of dawn, exhausted and aching but content enough in his victory even as his body dissolves into ash before his very eyes.Because even if it cost him his life, he still won against Glauca, still bought time for Libertus to get Lunafreya to safety. Still did his best to fight for the future he wants, a future where peace is the natural state of the world rather than war, a future where the people of Galahd are proud and strong again, rather than tattered and weary refugees.He did his best, and the cost of that is his life. And that’s alright. It’s a price he’s more than willing to pay.Except then, after his heart finally slows to a stop and he slips into darkness…he wakes up.He wakes up, and it’s two days before Crowe is sent on a mission that will end in her death and Nyx knows.Knows that he can change it, can change everything, and realizes that as impossible as it seems he has no choice but to try.
Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897525
Comments: 6
Kudos: 144





	we are the broken ones (who chose to spark a flame)

**we are the broken ones (who chose to spark a flame)**

* * *

There are probably, Nyx reasons, worse ways to die than being burned to cinders because of a pact made with a bunch of ancient kings.

Especially when that deal had given him the power to take down Glauca, to avenge not just King Regis but also every innocent who had ever fallen beneath the Niflheim general's blade. Doubly so when that deal had also allowed him to buy enough time for Libertus to get Lunafreya out of Insomnia, away from the Niflheim horde that wanted to capture her and claim the Ring of the Lucii.

All things considered, objectively speaking…it was a good deal, for all that the cost of victory is going to be his own life.

So Nyx sits, basking in the warm glow of the rising sun even though at this point he can barely feel it, the pale light of the dawn washing across him even as his veins burn with borrowed power and his skin crackles and flakes away like the ashes of a funeral pyre.

And when darkness finally starts to creep in at the edges of his vision, the shadows of death curling around him like an eternal night, he finds that (despite a few lingering regrets) he almost welcomes it.

So when his heart finally stutters to a halt, he falls backwards and lets the darkness swallow him whole.

He's thoroughly unsettled when, an indeterminable amount of time later, he opens his eyes and finds himself in his apartment.

The realization that he's back in his hovel of a home is twice as disturbing when he remembers that the entire apartment complex had been pretty much demolished during his fight with Glauca. It's physically impossible for him to be back in his apartment, because the building itself _no longer even exists_.

Unnerved and confused in equal measure, he hauls himself out of bed and takes a moment to be vaguely awed by the fact that nothing _hurts_. Because even ignoring that pesky little immolation clause in his bargain with the Lucian kings, his body had taken a _lot_ of abuse during that last battle against the man he'd once known as Commander Titus Drautos, not to mention all the battles before that.

Nyx had been pushing through the pain, ignoring the accumulated injuries because he'd had no _choice_ , but to suddenly be standing in his apartment, whole and healthy with no sluggishly bleeding stab wounds or mystical power burning him alive from the inside out?

It feels a bit like a miracle, but that can't be right because Nyx had already gotten his miracle; he'd bargained away his own life in exchange for it.

Heart pounding in his chest like he'd just outrun a pack of Saberclaws, the impossibility of the situation crashes down over him all over again and he scrambles across the room to snatch his phone up off the rickety coffee table.

Looks at the time and date displayed on the lock-screen and just…stares and stares and _stares_.

Because according to his phone, it's no longer the day Insomnia fell to Niflheim, no longer the day Regis was killed by Glauca. No longer the day Nyx had laughed at the Kings of Old and taunted them for their apparent indifference even as he sacrificed himself to save a kingdom that was barely even his.

Because according to his phone, it's two days before the day Crowe left on her final mission, the mission she had never come back from. The mission she'd been _murdered_ on, betrayed and killed by those who should have been watching her back rather than stabbing her in it.

Because according to his phone, he just woke up in his crappy rundown apartment on the day the ceasefire will be declared. On the day that will end with Commander Drautos -with _General Glauca_ , Nyx reminds himself- offering Crowe a classified mission for the sole purpose of getting her killed and sowing discontent among the Kingsglaive.

Something burns in Nyx's chest, hot and sharp, and he realizes that it's rage. Rage and grief over how _pointless_ Crowe's death was, of how someone so fierce and loyal and powerful was reduced to nothing more than a pawn in Glauca's game of betrayal.

His friend had been killed for the sake of a traitor's revenge scheme, and the injustice of it is almost too much to bear.

Then he looks at his phone again, at the date on the screen, and the rage shifts into something else, something that burns within him just as fiercely but with infinitely more focus, more resolve.

 _I can fix it_ , he thinks, and perhaps it's arrogance, to think that he can make any sort of difference given what he's up against but even so….

Even so, he won't forgive himself if he doesn't try.


End file.
